12,800 ISO on X-T100 — what is this sorcery?

Taken with a Fuji X-T100 and Fuji 15-45mm kit lens at 12,800 ISO and 1/7 second handheld during dusk.

Image was taken in JPG with noise reduction and sharpening each set to minus 2 (the lowest setting on the camera). The only edit made in post was raising the brightness slightly (which obviously only increases noise).

I can't see any color noise, and I can only see "grain" if I zoom in to 100%. And the image appears sharp and vibrant at any normal viewing sizes.

How the heck is Fuji doing this? I'm pretty dang impressed — not only with the iso performance, but with the in-lens stabilization, and with the X-T100 + 15-45mm lens combination in general. It's so great that I haven't needed any other lenses for the system. It's effectively my perfect everyday fixed-lens compact camera that can take good photos of almost anything. I love its simplicity and versatility.

It pretty darn good but I'd say the out of focus area in the back is what really suffers in this image.
Still, pleasently surprised how well the detail in the leaf and water drops held up.

JayPhizzt wrote:

it's definitely not sharp and pretty noisy.

Ya, no crap — it's freaking 12,800 ISO!!!

Are you saying it's soft and noisy for 12,800 ISO? That's the point.

To answer your question, I'm viewing on a 13-inch MacBook screen.

ragbasti wrote:

It pretty darn good but I'd say the out of focus area in the back is what really suffers in this image.

Yes, the noise is definitely more apparent in the out-of-focus areas, at least at 100% viewing. Good observation. I had never thought about noise being affected by focus.

Still, pleasently surprised how well the detail in the leaf and water drops held up.

I was too. Thanks for the feedback!

Correction to my original post: the photo was taken at 1/8 second — not 1/7 second.

KneeConWon wrote:

Taken with a Fuji X-T100 and Fuji 15-45mm kit lens at 12,800 ISO and 1/7 second handheld during dusk.

Image was taken in JPG with noise reduction and sharpening each set to minus 2 (the lowest setting on the camera). The only edit made in post was raising the brightness slightly (which obviously only increases noise).

I can't see any color noise, and I can only see "grain" if I zoom in to 100%. And the image appears sharp and vibrant at any normal viewing sizes.

How the heck is Fuji doing this? I'm pretty dang impressed — not only with the iso performance, but with the in-lens stabilization, and with the X-T100 + 15-45mm lens combination in general. It's so great that I haven't needed any other lenses for the system. It's effectively my perfect everyday fixed-lens compact camera that can take good photos of almost anything. I love its simplicity and versatility.

If the quality of light is halfway decent, ISO 12800 is usually very usable with a modern APS-C camera. With a little additional NR and a quick tweak it looks even cleaner. That 15-45 is a good little lens. Not super sharp here, but hey, it's at 1/8". My 16-55 would likely look significantly worse. at 1/8"

KneeConWon wrote:

Correction to my original post: the photo was taken at 1/8 second — not 1/7 second.

If you handheld that shot at 1/8 then from henceforth you shall be called, “The Human Tripod”. 👑

Erik Baumgartner wrote:

KneeConWon wrote:

Taken with a Fuji X-T100 and Fuji 15-45mm kit lens at 12,800 ISO and 1/7 second handheld during dusk.

Image was taken in JPG with noise reduction and sharpening each set to minus 2 (the lowest setting on the camera). The only edit made in post was raising the brightness slightly (which obviously only increases noise).

I can't see any color noise, and I can only see "grain" if I zoom in to 100%. And the image appears sharp and vibrant at any normal viewing sizes.

How the heck is Fuji doing this? I'm pretty dang impressed — not only with the iso performance, but with the in-lens stabilization, and with the X-T100 + 15-45mm lens combination in general. It's so great that I haven't needed any other lenses for the system. It's effectively my perfect everyday fixed-lens compact camera that can take good photos of almost anything. I love its simplicity and versatility.

If the quality of light is halfway decent, ISO 12800 is usually very usable with a modern APS-C camera.

I didn't realize the quality of light affected the level of noise. Thanks for the insight!

With a little additional NR and a quick tweak it looks even cleaner. That 15-45 is a good little lens. Not super sharp here, but hey, it's at 1/8". My 16-55 would likely look significantly worse. at 1/8"

Great edit! The noise is definitely smoother. I never use noise reduction in post for fear of losing detail, but I should give it consideration.

I'm surprised you were able to brighten the photo without blowing out any highlights, as I thought I had already pushed it as far as it would go before such happened. It also appears you adjusted the white balance — I'll admit I got lazy, considering Fuji's excellent auto white balance, and determined the color already looked good without needing to mess with it — either in camera or in post.

Your post has been very illuminating. Thank you!

ikaika777 wrote:

KneeConWon wrote:

Correction to my original post: the photo was taken at 1/8 second — not 1/7 second.

If you handheld that shot at 1/8 then from henceforth you shall be called, “The Human Tripod”. 👑

LOL. Too funny! I'm honored. 

It does seem to be harder to handhold cameras during macro shots — I'm not sure why. In any case, I usually try to never go below 1/15 second in any situation with this camera/lens, but there was hardly any light when I took the photo.

In retrospect, it would have been smarter to have taken the shot in M mode at 1/15 second (and still 12,800 ISO) and banked on having to raise the brightness more in post, but I got lucky on this occasion. Or maybe I just should have used an actual tripod! 

CAcreeks wrote:

KneeConWon wrote:

How the heck is Fuji doing this? I'm pretty dang impressed — not only with the iso performance, but with the in-lens stabilization, and with the X-T100 + 15-45mm lens combination in general. It's so great that I haven't needed any other lenses for the system. It's effectively my perfect everyday fixed-lens compact camera that can take good photos of almost anything. I love its simplicity and versatility.

Yes, the X-T100 has amazing image quality for its price.

No doubt, and I got it brand new with the lens for $399. B&H had a sale at the beginning of the year. Best purchase ever!

Also Erik is really good at Lightroom edits.

I can see that!

I'm wondering, since the X-T100 has Bayer sensor and is supported by DxO Photolab with Prime noise reduction, how would this look with Raw conversion using that software?

Ya that would be interesting to see. If anyone reading this wants to try that and share it here, have at it!

My question for you: what do you think about the PowerZoom aspect of the XC 15-45? Do you avoid it, does it not bother you, or would you prefer manual zoom?

I would definitely prefer manual zoom, though I appreciate that the power zoom helps keep the lens small and I've gotten used to using it, so I really don't mind it now. And the lens is awesome in just about every other way — IQ, size, weight, versatile focal range of 23-69mm equivalent, macro ability.

The power zoom did get on my nerves at first. Many people call it "fiddly" and I can understand why — if you accidentally graze the focus ring while intentionally turning the power-zoom ring, it won't zoom at all! And unless you have experience using the lens, you may not understand why it's not working in that moment, which is very frustrating, especially if you just missed a shot because of it.

Once you realize how to avoid that issue, the power zoom starts becoming really easy to use, and eventually you don't even think about it. It's a non-issue after a certain amount of experience with the lens.

I would highly recommend the lens. I assumed I would be buying some Fuji primes, but honestly I don't even need them with how good and versatile the 15-45mm is.

KneeConWon wrote:

CAcreeks wrote:

KneeConWon wrote:

How the heck is Fuji doing this? I'm pretty dang impressed — not only with the iso performance, but with the in-lens stabilization, and with the X-T100 + 15-45mm lens combination in general. It's so great that I haven't needed any other lenses for the system. It's effectively my perfect everyday fixed-lens compact camera that can take good photos of almost anything. I love its simplicity and versatility.

Yes, the X-T100 has amazing image quality for its price.

No doubt, and I got it brand new with the lens for $399. B&H had a sale at the beginning of the year. Best purchase ever!

Also Erik is really good at Lightroom edits.

I can see that!

I'm wondering, since the X-T100 has Bayer sensor and is supported by DxO Photolab with Prime noise reduction, how would this look with Raw conversion using that software?

Ya that would be interesting to see. If anyone reading this wants to try that and share it here, have at it!

My question for you: what do you think about the PowerZoom aspect of the XC 15-45? Do you avoid it, does it not bother you, or would you prefer manual zoom?

I would definitely prefer manual zoom, though I appreciate that the power zoom helps keep the lens small and I've gotten used to using it, so I really don't mind it now. And the lens is awesome in just about every other way — IQ, size, weight, versatile focal range of 23-69mm equivalent, macro ability.

The power zoom did get on my nerves at first. Many people call it "fiddly" and I can understand why — if you accidentally graze the focus ring while intentionally turning the power-zoom ring, it won't zoom at all! And unless you have experience using the lens, you may not understand why it's not working in that moment, which is very frustrating, especially if you just missed a shot because of it.

Once you realize how to avoid that issue, the power zoom starts becoming really easy to use, and eventually you don't even think about it. It's a non-issue after a certain amount of experience with the lens.

I would highly recommend the lens. I assumed I would be buying some Fuji primes, but honestly I don't even need them with how good and versatile the 15-45mm is.

I have my 15-45 set to "zoom by wire" so that it zooms like all the other Fuji zooms, but you use the focus ring for zooming, not the zoom ring. None of the Fuji zooms are actually manual zooms.

bowportes wrote:

I have my 15-45 set to "zoom by wire" so that it zooms like all the other Fuji zooms, but you use the focus ring for zooming, not the zoom ring. None of the Fuji zooms are actually manual zooms.

Unless I`m misunderstanding you, it`s quite the opposite - all Fuji zooms are manual zooms (albeit with _focus_ "by wire", being electronically coupled lenses), where you can manually zoom in/out even with lens detached from camera, while XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ is the only "power zoom" (which is what "PZ" stands for), being "zoom by wire" as you called it, and unable to operate when lens is detached.

The 15-45 can be set up to use the zoom and focus rings as a two speed setup, with the zoom ring for coarse but fast adjustments and the focus ring for fine but slow  zoom adjustments instead of focus. Or you can use the focus ring to focus of course.  I hate power zoom lenses, but with the two speed setup on the 15-45 I am actually learning to tolerate it.  There is definitely no manual zoom, all power zoom.